The present invention relates generally to covers for books, booklets, pamphlets and the like, and more particularly, to a cover which encloses all four sides of a volume in a single wraparound sheet.
The burgeoning production of industrial reports, periodicals, specially prepared teaching materials and other publications has given rise to a variety of relatively inexpensive binding processes of various complexities. Some are simply stapled or attached with post-type binders. Others utilize bars of plastic situated on either side of a stack of pages having perforations under the position of the bars. Connecting portions extend from at least one of the bars through the perforations to the other to join the opposing bar, and thereby lock the stack of papers therebetween. In these and other manners, a pre-selected collection of pages can be securely bound in an inexpensive manner.
The existing methods of binding, while usually adequate for the service, have proved somewhat deficient from an aesthetic viewpoint wherein the bound product presented an unfinished appearance.
Typical of the devices which have been developed by prior workers in the art to protect pages bound in this way and to produce a better visual appearance have included merely adding, as a first and last page, cover sheets of heavier grade paper. Such cover sheets could be employed decoratively in addition to serving as both a title page and a source of some protection. Such cover sheets, however, have not provided protection for the edges of the bound pages, the portion which, under storage or library conditions, is most visible and most susceptible to wear and discoloration through use. Also, the spine surface of the page edges is left exposed and unfinished by incorporating front and back cover pages. Such an unfinished edge cannot be imprinted and thus, a collection of such bound volumes cannot provide information to distinguish one volume from another while positioned on a shelf.
Other efforts have been made to more completely protect the enclosed pages of simply bound stacks of pages. Such further attempts have included, among others, the use of a spine enclosing member, usually of plastic, slidably fitting along the length of both sides of binding bars to enclose the binding means and the spine edge of the bound pages. These have typically not provided the width and surface characteristics necessary for imprinting the information normally included in hard bound books as described above. Further, the remaining edges of the bound pages continued to be unprotected and present an unattractive appearance. Other attempts have been made to provide a cover wherein a single sheet of covering grade paper or plastic sheet is used which continues as a front and back page. In such a construction, the remainder of the page edges continue to be unprotected.
In a different context, it has been known to use backers for the enclosure of legal papers. These backers consist of a single sheet of light grade paper which is stapled to the front of the document. It is then folded up and over the document so as to cover the back thereof, resulting in an upper border which covers the staples in front as well as providing a sheet to protect the back page. The document is then folded so that only the backer is facing the exterior. This provides some protection but is obviously not applicable for use with bound volumes which are not intended to be folded.
Therefore, despite the activity of prior workers in the field, there has not to date been developed a means for presenting inexpensively bound volumes in an aesthetic manner, approximating that of conventional, glue bound, hard cover books. Nor has there been provided satisfactory means for protection of the contents in a simple and inexpensive manner.